Zombie Story Chapter 2

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Zombie Story Chapter 2
Topic Started: 3 Nov 2009, 10:47 PM (67 Views)
Cameron	3 Nov 2009, 10:47 PM Post #1
Administratinator Posts: 1,739 Group: Admin Member #1 Joined: 20 December 2007	Chapter 2: Christa Ramirez walked down the street. Jack and Tim were ahead of her, leading the way back to their safe house. There were stalkers everywhere. The frightening thing about them was they looked human. They were just infected, and there was nothing about their appearance that marked them as other, at least not at first glance. Their eyes were bloodshot, true, but by the time you were close enough to notice it was too late. It was the way they carried themselves. They didn’t move like humans. They paced nervously in the shadows. Then, they’d make sharp, jerking movements. They’d stop suddenly and look at something distant. They moved like wolves anxiously awaiting a predator, or prey. There were a few of them outside today. There always were. You learned to watch them out of the corner of your eye, but not be terrified of them. They hated the light. It didn’t seem to hurt them, but they avoided it whenever they could. They didn’t kill much if it meant tracking their victim through broad daylight. Of course, if they were in a fury, nothing would stop them. She’d seen that happen earlier today. “So, you’ve been living here ever since the Outbreak?” said Tim. “Here and there,” she said. “Lived with my boyfriend and some random strangers for a while a few blocks down the street. They, they didn’t… When it got down to just me, I moved to the office building. Lived there, let’s see… eleven months now.” They didn’t ask her about her friends’ deaths, and she appreciated that. A stalker was approaching from ahead and to the right. He walked over slowly. His eyes squinted as he looked out into the light, trying to gauge if it was worth going after them. Tim walked up to it, pulled out a crowbar from his backpack, and hit it full strength over the head. The stalker’s reflexes must have been slowed by the sun, it didn’t block in time and it fell to the ground with a broken skull. Jack said, “It wasn’t gonna chase us.” “Probably not,” said Tim, “but I didn’t wanna worry about it.” “But now all you can think about is how much your wrists hurt.” “Doesn’t hurt me.” Tim wasn’t very convincing about that last bit. Christa said, “You’ve got all those guns, why not just shoot him?” Tim said, “Didn’t wanna waste a bullet.” “You’ve got hundreds,” Christa said. Jack said, “Yeah. And we’ve used up thousands already. The Sarge says we need to conserve. Besides, crowbar’s quiet. AT’s can hear gunshots from over a mile away, and they might just come to put a stop to the noise. It’s daylight, so we’re safer, but it’s still not a risk you take for no reason.” “AT?” Christa asked. “Acceptable Target,” said Tim. “That’s what they call them in the army.” “How much further till we get inside. It’ll be dark soon. Unless… you plan to fight your way past them?” Jack said, “No, we’re not that stupid. Okay, Tim is, but I wouldn’t let him. It’s two blocks from here. Hey, I didn’t think to ask. Have you searched through this whole area?” “Yeah. I, we picked it clean. There might be some stuff 10 blocks past where we are now. There’s a few shops that way.” “You saved us some searching time,” said Tim. “We’ll introduce you to Sergeant Honeyface. She’ll say if you get to come with us or not.” Honeyface. Odd name, but she’d heard stranger. They came to another office building and stopped. Tim knocked on the door three times lightly, twice hard, and once more lightly. Then he held it open for Christa and Jack. They walked in. Christa. couldn’t see much in the darkness, but she could tell all but one of the entrances had been blocked off with the heavy couches that had no doubt been in the center of the lobby. Some of the doors inside the building had been lightly barricaded, too. There was one couch pulled up next to the receptionist’s desk for some reason. And there were several backpacks full of supplies lying on top of the desk. Someone stood up behind the receptionist’s desk. “Decided not to wait till the last minute this time? I must have actually managed to beat some sense into your combined heads.” A woman’s voice. And she sounded groggy. Christa got closer. This was definitely the Sergeant. “Wait, who’s the civilian?” the Sergeant said. Christa spoke up. “I’m Christine Rodriguez. I heard you’re trying to leave the city. I want to get out of here too. I was hoping-” “We can’t feed any more mouths. Sorry.” Tim said, “She brought her own food.” Christa said, “Miss Honeyface I-” “Why are you calling me that! My name’s not- Did you two retards tell her my name was Honeyface?” “We-” Tim said. “No, don’t explain,” the Sergeant said. “Every time you tell me what idiot train of thinking led you to your latest screwup it only makes me more pissed.” She turned to Christa, “My name’s Sergeant Rachel Hodges, Wisconsin Civil Defense Corps. With the exception of those two privates, we’re a professional military organization. We don’t have room for stragglers. We need to move quickly and stealthily and you’ll get us killed. I’m sorry.” “That’s not your problem and you know it,” said Tim. “Watch your tone,” Rachel said. “No. You don’t trust her. You think she’ll shoot us in our sleep and take our junk.” “It had crossed our minds. You know better than most what animals people become when they’re desperate.” “Like you?” said Jack. Rachel slammed her fist into his chest and the man tumbled to the ground. As he picked himself up again she said, “I’ve had it with your insubordination. Don’t make me correct you again.” Tim said, “She’s not a threat. She’s the only one in the area. This isn’t like back in Janesville . No ambush to set up.” “How do you know?” Rachel asked. “She told you? People lie. Besides, even a loner can be a threat.” She looked at Christa. Christa knew what the woman saw: A five foot six frame, half-starved, barely any muscle. Pathetic really. She wasn’t a threat to anything bigger than a bug. Srgt. Hodges said, “I’ll go out on patrol and think about it.” “But-” Jack said. “I’ll think about it. Keep an eye on her. You searched her pack?” “We did,” Tim said. “Christa gave us some valuable intel. Area’s been scoured, but eight blocks to the north hasn’t been picked over too well.” “Fine,” said Rachel. “I started some barricades while you were gone. This place is clean but I can’t vouch for the rest of the building. Don’t wander off and get yourselves killed. I’d be so overjoyed I’d lose my head and screw something up.” As Rachel walked past Christa, Christa got a look at her. The Sergeant wore a full military uniform, not one of the piecemeal outfits Jack and Tim wore. The woman was carrying heavy firepower like the others. But all that got ignored when Christa saw the woman’s eyes. They were bloodshot. And her skin had turned slightly grey. Rachel Hodges was a stalker. **** Sergeant Hodges strolled out into the dim sunlight. Shit. The boys had come back early, and there was still enough light to sting her eyes. She put on her sunglasses and the world became tolerable. Miss Rodriguez was a liability. Normally, she’d save a survivor if she had the chance. But this mission was too important to jeopardize. They couldn’t afford risks. Not now. After this was over she’d go out of her way to save as many as she could, make it up to the world. She had smelled the desperation on the woman. That could be a dangerous emotion. She’d seen survivors driven to murder, rape, even cannibalism. Some of these people had no doubt been upstanding citizens before the outbreak. But they’d been turned into monsters as badly as if they’d been infected themselves. Here was Huang’s Foods, some sort of oriental grocer. Looked promising. Rachel took off her shades and entered. The place had been ransacked, but canned goods were still there, strewn around the store. So it had been infected, not humans who’d done it. Infected couldn’t handle cans. She filled her pack. The walls had signs on them, but she couldn’t make out the language. Chinese? Thai? Something like that. Most of the rows of food had been stripped off the shelf and devoured. The ground was littered with crumbs and torn packaging. She turned over a package of something called “Pocky” with her boot. Nothing worthwhile underneath it. She could smell the scent of other infected. They’d been through the building recently, perhaps returning to search for more food. There was a walk-in-freezer behind the counter; she walked over to it. The door was slightly ajar and she pulled it open. Instantly, the smell of dozens of infected washed over her. The freezer was full of them. She pushed gently into the room, surrounded on all sides, and moved toward the back. They garbled incoherently at her and she didn’t respond. Some people theorized that the infected had some sort of language that they used, perhaps the instinctual long-forgotten language of mankind. Rachel suspected it was just the gibberish of a fragmented mind. In either case, she couldn’t understand it. There was a smell here, a corpse. Sure enough, she found the gnawed body of a dog, its fur lying around it in chunks. It’s food. Eat. The blood made the monster inside her wake up again, and she forced it to the back of her mind. She wondered if she was overreacting. There was still meat there, and it’d taste fine to her. It wouldn’t be sanitary, but there was no natural contagion that could stand up to the manmade übervirus in her system. But no, she was a human. She ate food, not leftover carcasses. She left the mostly-eaten dog behind. There was a wallet on the ground, however it had gotten back here. But it would only have useless things like business cards, money, and maybe a photo of someone else’s kids. This was a dead end. She pushed her way back through the infected, a bit annoyed at finding nothing of value. That was all she was bothered by. Nothing else. She went back out and surveyed the street. There were scattered cars and some dead bodies. A nearby electronics store had been looted. That had to have been early on, before the power went out, back when value was measured in dollars and cents. Guns, bullets, medical supplies, food. Those were the big things. If she found one of those, her search today would have been worthwhile. She also kept a lookout for the little things, like cell phones, tools, or household cleaners. Anything that might be useful, really. A few blocks later she saw Superior Firepower, a gun shop. The front windows were broken from the inside, so it had probably been looted been early on. Breaking glass was noisy, and there were things out there that did not appreciate noise. Everything these days knew to be quiet. That which wasn’t had a tendency not to live long. She peered between the bars on the windows and looked in. Most of the stock was gone, but there were a few odds and ends around. Maybe there was something here. There were copies of American Hunter and a few other publications lying on a magazine rack which had fallen over. On the shelves there were mostly gun cases and attachments. Hooks adorned the back wall, stripped of the guns they had once carried. She scooped up a box of shotgun shells off the floor. And another. Then she checked behind the counter. Sure enough, there was a Glock 9mm where the cashier would have had easy reach. And a little farther down there was a shotgun. Vaulting the counter she made her way to the back. Arrows, but no bows. The sun had gone completely down, and she only had indirect moonlight to go on now. That made it more difficult to see. If she’d been human… Correction: if she’d been uninfected, she wouldn’t be able to see at all in the low lighting, but all of her senses were in overdrive now. Making her way back out, she scanned the area for potential scavenging. Lacy’s Dress Boutique, Gamer Central, and something called “The Experience!” Worthless. She stepped over a body in the street, with every bit of flesh and organ eaten. She backed up, searched the remains of the suit, came across a Palm Pilot. Battery was dead. Useless. She kept going. Useless. That was Christa. Rachel couldn’t afford dead weight. Potentially dangerous dead weight. What if Christa killed one of Rachel’s crew, or stole the vaccine? Too much of a risk. Even if she could be trusted the boys would have to look out for her. She’d be a distraction. Was it her job to watch over every basket case they came across? It was, wasn’t it. She was in the Civil Defense Corps, sworn to defend and protect. That was her mission. No, scratch that, her primary objective was to retrieve the vaccine and safeguard it at all costs. But in doing so, could she leave behind someone who was sworn to protect. Hadn’t she taken the oath? Hadn’t she worn the arm band? If protecting civilians wasn’t in her mission, could she really call herself a Corpsman? If not, what did that make her? It made her just another survivor, no code to live by. Just another person watching out for herself and those around her, willing to do whatever it takes no matter what was wrong or right. Fuck.
	Note that Cameron is not Patrick and does not run Godlimations.


Luemas	4 Nov 2009, 10:00 PM Post #2
All ur Walrus R belong to Me Posts: 4,019 Group: Members Member #189 Joined: 14 January 2009	Strong end, but I certainly wasn't expecting her to be infected. She must've vaccinated herself before the virus took full effect.
	Vote for Lue to make Sad Panda... Happy Panda?


Cameron	6 Nov 2009, 12:25 PM Post #3
Administratinator Posts: 1,739 Group: Admin Member #1 Joined: 20 December 2007	Here is the previous incarnation of this idea.
	Note that Cameron is not Patrick and does not run Godlimations.


Godzilla	13 Nov 2009, 04:26 AM Post #4
What is green...scaly...breathes flame...and has spikes? Posts: 1,503 Group: Moderator Member #30 Joined: 17 February 2008	I remember telling you that you should make the script a story. This has a lot more depth than the script.
	http://godzilla725.deviantart.com/ "Rest, prepare, cry in the corner...whatever you do before a mission, only do it quietly." ~ Malik (Assassin's Creed) "I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants." ~ A. Whitney Brown When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.


ARAZEC	13 Nov 2009, 07:39 AM Post #5
This Person Has No Life Posts: 4,006 Group: Members Member #48 Joined: 18 June 2008	i remember that awh @ cameron like when you write non humourous -aka Leaves in the River
	OTTOR BE SORRY


Cameron	16 Nov 2009, 11:25 AM Post #6
Administratinator Posts: 1,739 Group: Admin Member #1 Joined: 20 December 2007	Yeah. The original script was meant to be light and humorous. When I thought more about the character of Rachel and the struggles and challenges she would face I realized I had a great story with her but I'd have to rearrange everything else around it. So I did.
	Note that Cameron is not Patrick and does not run Godlimations.


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